Sold! £700 car from 80 years ago goes for £21,850

The pristine car, described as 'one of the last true Sunbeams' was sold at Bonhams at Woodstock, near Oxford.

It belonged to wealthy farmer's daughter Elizabeth Machin who paid for a partition to be installed between the driver's seat and the back seats so her chauffeur, William Herries, would not be able to hear her conversations with other passengers.

Miss Machin, who never married and who lived at Edwalton Manor in Nottinghamshire, loved her car so much that she held on to it for 47 years until her death on February 27, 1975, at the age of 103.

Since her death, it has had only three other owners, including Miss Machin's nephew, William Brown.

It has done 87,412 miles and also has an MoT.

Between 1927 and 1930, Sunbeam built 3,495 of these cars in the city, but only 98 are known to have survived. In 1928, Miss Machin bought the Sunbeam chassis for £425 and then paid around £300 to Nottingham coachbuilders, Simpson & Slater to construct the limousine body, including the soundproof division between the driver's seat and passenger seats.

Sunbeam's Moorfield Works were in Upper Villiers Street, Wolverhampton.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: "In 1905, the Sunbeam Motor Car Co Ltd was founded to take over John Marston's Ltd motor car manufacturing business. Sunbeam quickly became a leading British motor car producer."

Mr Marston was also chairman of Wolverhampton Conservative Club and was twice mayor of the city in 1889 and 1890.

It was Marston who obtained the royal assent to build a power station to supply electricity for electric lighting throughout Wolverhampton.

Marston and wife, Ellen, had 10 children and three live-in servants were living at The Oaks, Merridale Road, before, some time between 1901 and 1911, moving to The Gables at Tettenhall, where they employed five live-in servants.